While increasing life insurance premiums with increasing age is an unavoidable fact of life, your health status is another matter entirely. It's not predictable, nor is it completely within your control. (But you really should eat more leafy greens.) If you develop certain medical conditions, life insurance suddenly becomes prohibitively expensive, if you can get it at all. For good reason, then, people seek insurance that can be renewed regardless of any changes in health.

The option to renew a term policy without a medical exam may be the single most important component of a term life policy. This is especially true if the policy term won't take you close to retirement age.

So, if you are likely to buy another policy when this one expires, be sure to get a "renewable" term policy, and be sure that this means you can renew without a medical exam. Some "renewable" term policies just make it easy to renew, but require a medical exam, leaving you exposed to big problems should health issues surface later.